


heart breaker, soul shaker, i've been told about you

by notthebigspoon



Category: Country Music RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebigspoon/pseuds/notthebigspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No. You don’t like me because you don’t like being wrong. Especially about yourself. You’re going to thank me one of these days. Besides, if you weren’t a little concerned that I’m right, which I am, you wouldn’t have come over here.”</p><p>Title taken from Hair of the Dog by Nazareth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart breaker, soul shaker, i've been told about you

“Y’see? This is why nobody likes you.”

Jeff snorts and takes another drink of his beer, meeting Blake’s indignation with what had to be the millionth eyeroll of the day. “No. You don’t like me because you don’t like being wrong. Especially about yourself. You’re going to thank me one of these days. Besides, if you weren’t a little concerned that I’m right, which I am, you wouldn’t have come over here.”

This was a point that Blake had to concede. If he didn’t think, even the tiniest little bit, that Jeff could be on to something, he’d have told the older man to fuck off and would have consoled himself with beer, a joint, and watching [and eventually joining] Miranda making out with her girlfriend like she always let him do when he was especially upset about something.

“I’m not gay.”

“I didn’t say you was, exactly. I just think that you care about Dierks a lot more than you let on. And definitely not the way you claim you do.” Jeff says, gesturing uselessly, forehead wrinkling as if he’s trying to find the words to explain what he was getting at. “I just think that you’d be happier if you quit pretending you were happy bein’ Miranda’s shield.”

Blake scowls, but he can’t refute that line of reasoning. He could explain away his desire to be closer to Dierks as the fact that life with that man is one big party. He could say that he doesn’t mind protecting Miranda from the public and ignorance because he doesn’t, he loves that girl, wants her happy, even if it’s not with him.

But happy? No, he hasn’t been that in a while. He’s not miserable by any means but life isn’t what he wants it to be. Something’s missing and he doesn’t know what it is. He’d mentioned as much to Jeff when the older man had called that morning, which was what had gotten this whole thing started. And while he would keep playing the annoyed ‘you’re wrong and I hate you’ angle, the thing was, he was starting to think Jeff was right.

“This is why nobody likes you.” He repeats his earlier words and gets off the couch, not looking back as he lets himself out of the house. And if he kicks Jeff’s favorite garden gnome over on the way to his truck? It’s only because that was the only way he wasn’t going to go back inside and strangle that laughing old bastard.

His hands are shaking as he drives home, because a small voice in the back of his mind keeps saying, _‘Jeff could be right. Probably is right. You suck. Figure it out.’_ Figuring out seems like a good idea but he can’t do that without beer. There’s beer at Dierks’ house. And the turn off is just ahead and it’d be so easy to go have this out with a simple, ‘You ain’t gonna believe what Jeff said to me this mornin’…’ to see if he should even go through with thinking about this.

The turn signal indicates he’s going to make a right at the next intersection. Fear and self doubt win out at the last minute and it’s quickly slapped off as he takes his usual route home. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone for him to drag this out. He isn’t gay, he hasn’t ever so much as looked at another man in his life.

Except he does spend rather a lot of time looking at Dierks. An amount of time that can’t be explained away as sizing up the competition, especially since Dierks is married and unless he’s a bigger dick than Blake would think possible of him, that puts him out of the running for the pretty women of the world. It’s not his fault. His hair’s rather fascinating and when he smiles, you have to look, just because it lights up his whole face and the whole damn room to boot.

When he turns down his street, he wants to [and does] swear because apparently God hates him today. Dierks truck is on the curb and he’s sitting on the porch swing, though he climbs to his feet as soon as Blake’s truck swings into the driveway. He’s as concerned as Blake’s ever seen him. Jeff Foxworthy is a dead man.

“Can’t say as I’m not happy to see you, but the hell you doin’ on my porch, Bentley?” Blake doesn’t hide the grumble in his voice and he goes straight past Dierks to the door, fumbling for the right key and struggling to get the door open. “I’m asking because if I keep talking, it’ll mean more time to calm down before you tell me what I think I already know.

Dierks looks hurt, not even approaching annoyance at the less than stellar greeting, and suddenly Blake feels like the lowest person on earth. “Well not that it matters seein’ as how you don’t want me here much right now, apparently, but Jeff gave me a call. Said you’d just left his house and that he was worried because you were pretty upset about something. And it looks like he was right.”

Jeff Foxworthy is a very dead man.

The door’s left open when it finally gives way and Blake goes straight for the garage door for his emergency beer stash, grabbing two cans. He’s not surprised to find Dierks still standing outside and he gestures impatiently at the living room, pitching one of the beers over his shoulder when he hears the front door clicking shut. The can makes contact with flesh and there’s a low curse, making Blake smile as he settles down into his chair and turns the TV on, clicking around until he finds a fishing show.

To his credit and to Blake’s chagrin, Dierks doesn’t say a word. He just settles comfortably in his usual spot on the couch, props his feet up on the coffee table, and cracks his beer open. Blake wants him to speak, wants him to prod because honestly? Blake doesn’t know if he’s got the courage to speak up on his own and can’t just behave normally, not with what’s on his mind.

It’s two hours, two long hours of not saying a word and giving up on his beer because he can’t really swallow right now. Dierkss easy sprawl eventually melts away until the older man is sitting bolt upright, jaw clenched and blue eyes focused intently on the television. He doesn’t say a word when he finally gets up and leave, and Blake doesn’t follow, though he wants more than anything to just chase and tell Dierks exactly what the problem is, why he can’t talk to him, why he’s too afraid to look at him.

How are you supposed to tell one of your best friends, one of your happily married with a kid best friends, that there’s the possibility that you might maybe be a little bit gay for him? Blake would sure like to know.

The phone he’d willed to ring all day doesn’t make a sound until late that night, when Miranda and Heidi are already asleep in the bed beside him and he’s working on being unconscious himself. He’s too tired and stressed, even after the sex, to talk to whoever it is. He pushes ‘ignore’.

The girls don’t wake him up before they leave the next morning and when he wakes up, it’s alone with a post-it marked by lipstick kisses stuck to his forehead. A smile crosses his face as he stashes the scrap of paper in his bedside table and picks his phone up to check his messages. His good morning disappears when he gets one from Dierks.

Dierks who sounds nothing like the happy go lucky man Blake knows.

“I asked Jeff to talk to you. I thought it’d maybe be easier if he suggested it and felt things out for me, because I was scared. And… shit, y’know, he said he thought it mighta went well even if you was upset. If this bothers you so much, you could have said something. You could have told me to go, told me why it upset you so bad. You didn’t have to ignore me, you don’t have to ignore my calls. You should have just told me the goddamned truth. This is why nobody likes you Blake. You’re a goddamned coward.”

Blake deletes the message and drops his phone, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow. The annoying little voice that had haunted him yesterday comes back.

_‘Jeff was right. You figured out. And you still suck.’_


End file.
